The warm weather continues and with it, good moth numbers. After the busy night on Wednesday, I have just run the garden trap the last 2 nights, still scoring with new for year records.
On Thursday night a year record of 136 moths of 65 species were taken in the garden Skinner trap. Numbers were supplied by 15 Riband wave, 11
Crambus perlella and 8 Common footman whilst the new for year Peppered moth and Scalloped oak.
Better still was a very worn moth at the bottom of the trap, a new for parish records Ruddy Carpet. Just enough scales on it to identify as shown here.
 |
| Peppered moth |
 |
| Ruddy carpet, or what is left of it, a new moth for the parish |
 |
| Scalloped oak |
These three species took the year total to 299 and so the first new moth for the year out of the trap was going to be the 300th. This turned out to be a Dot moth, followed by a Phoenix and Lychnis. Also, a new for year micro in the form of an
Acleris hastiana. Last year the 300th moth wasn't taken until 14th July, so it is turning out to be a really good year, after a pretty dismal start until mid May when things really took off. Have now recorded 3458 moths.
 |
| 300th moth for the year: Dot moth |
 |
| Lychnis |
 |
| Phoenix |
On this day last year I had just recorded the 200th moth for the year with a total of just 1514, so 100 moth species ahead and almost a 1000 more moths this year.
Finally, an identification issue was resolved yesterday when a tricky carpet species was finally nailed as a Twin spot carpet, not a common moth for the county, so most pleasing.
 |
| Acleris hastiana |
 |
| Twin spot carpet |
 |
| Hoverfly in the garden: Marmalade fly, Episyrphus balteatus |
No comments:
Post a Comment